California health officials are investigating whether a homemade coronavirus strain could be partly to blame for the increase in state infections.
According to the Los Angeles Times, scientists came across the new strain while searching for signs of the highly contagious variant that originated in the United Kingdom before migrating to the US.
During the search, researchers found a new strain, called B.1.426, which is thought to be responsible for the rapid increase in infections during the California holiday period, where more than 3.1 million cases were reported and 36,790 people died.
The new strain is also highly contagious and spreads faster than any other variant in California.
‘While the B.1.1.7 strain could play a major role in rising COVID rates in the UK and Europe, there are still no reports of the current increase in cases in Los Angeles and California as a whole occurring in early November started, to declare. 2020, ‘wrote researchers from the Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in their findings.
California health officials are investigating whether a homemade coronavirus strain, called B.1.426, could be partly blamed for the increase in state infections. The strain has five mutations, including CAL.20C (red bubble), which are increasingly found in California
According to researchers, the CAL.20C strain was barely observable in October, but by December it made up 24 percent of 4,500 viral samples.
The image shows the rapid increase in infections between late November and December in California. The increase is attributed to what researchers say is a homemade strain of the coronavirus
In California, more than 3.1 million cases were reported and 36,790 people died. More than 18,000 people have died in the state in less than three months
“We report that there is a new strain of CAL.20C that is currently increasing in Southern California,” they added.
The B.1.426 strain was initially discovered in July, but was only seen again three months later.
According to the research, the CAL.20C strain was barely observable in October, but by December it made up 24 percent of 4,500 viral samples.
In a separate study, researchers found that 25 percent of the viral samples from Northern California were of the same type between late November and December, according to the LA Times.
“There was a homemade variant under our noses,” Dr. Charles Chiu, a laboratory medicine specialist at UC San Francisco, told the newspaper.
Chiu said if they had not searched for the British tribe, they would have ‘missed it on every level’.
According to the Cedars-Sinai team, strain B.1.426 has five mutations, including the L452R mutation, which alter the protein of the virus. The vein protein is what the virus uses to infiltrate human cells.
The new tribe is thought to be partly responsible for California nearly doubling its death toll in less than three months.
How big the role the new tension played in the boom, however, is still unclear due to the presence of other factors, including holidays and people disregarding CDC leadership.
In order to determine B.1.426’s role in the boom, investigators are trying to figure out what he can do.
In a separate study, researchers found that 25 percent of viral samples from Northern California were of the same type between late November and December. A doctor visits a patient with COVID-19 in Los Angeles
Researchers have told the LA Times that they will focus on its transmissibility and ability to bypass masks, drugs and vaccines, which are used as tools to stop the spread.
Meanwhile, the Centers for Disease Control & Prevention (CDC) is stepping up its efforts to detect coronavirus mutations to ensure that COVID-19 vaccines and treatments remain new variants of the disease until collective immunity is achieved, the CDC chief said Sunday. . .
Dr Rochelle Walensky spoke about the implications of the rapidly evolving virus in a Fox News Sunday interview as the
More than 25 million Americans are infected with the virus and there are more than 418,000 deaths just over a year after the first U.S. case of COVID-19 was documented.
Walensky, who took over as CDC director last Wednesday, the day President Joe Biden was sworn in, also said the biggest immediate culprit for the sluggish distribution of vaccines was a stock crisis exacerbated by stock turmoil inherited from the Trump administration .
“The fact that we do not know today, five days after this administration and weeks after planning, how much vaccine we have now, gives you an idea of the challenges we have been left with,” she told Fox News.
Biden’s transitional team was largely excluded from the government’s vaccination speech for weeks after his election, as then-President Donald Trump refused to concede defeat and gave the incoming government access to the information needed to prepare to govern. .
More than 25 million cases of the virus have been reported in the US since the pandemic began last year
Ron Klain, chief of staff at Biden, said in a separate interview on NBC’s Meet the Press that a plan to distribute the vaccine, especially outside nursing homes and hospitals, ‘did not really exist when we entered the White House. do not have’.
Walensky said she was confident the government would soon resolve questions about the offer, and dramatically expand vaccine production and distribution by the end of March.
However, uncertainty about immediate supplies is hampering efforts at state and local level to plan ahead how many vaccination sites, staff and appointments will be set up in the meantime, which will exacerbate short-term shortages.
Vaccination has become increasingly critical with the recent emergence of several coronavirus variants that are more transmissible, and in the case of one strain first detected in Britain, possibly more deadly.
“We are now increasing our oversight of this and our study of it,” Walensky said, adding that the CDC is working with the National Institutes of Health, the Food and Drug Administration and even the Pentagon.
The aim, according to her, is to ‘monitor the impact of these variants on vaccines as well as on our drugs’, as the virus continues to change as it spreads.
“Until vaccines can provide ‘herd’ immunity in the population, wearing masks and social distances remains essential to reduce ‘the amount of virus circulating’, and reduce the amount of variants out there, ‘Walensky said.
Although British officials warned on Friday that the so-called British variant of the coronavirus, which has already been detected in at least 20 US states, is associated with a higher level of mortality, scientists said existing vaccinations still appear to be effective against it.
However, they are concerned that a more contagious South African variant may reduce the efficacy of current vaccines and show resistance to three antibody therapies developed for the treatment of COVID-19 patients.
Similarities between the South African variant and another identified in Brazil suggest that the Brazilian variety may also resist antibody process.
“We’re in a race against this variant,” Vivek Murthy, who was nominated by Biden to become the next U.S. surgeon general, said Sunday on ABC’s program This Week.
Dr Anthony Fauci, the country’s leading specialist in infectious diseases, said at the end of December that he was optimistic that the US would be able to achieve enough collective immunity against COVID to regain a semblance of normality by the autumn of 2021.
But Murthy said it was an ambitious goal to take herd immunity before a new school year begins in September.
Nevertheless, Murthy suggested that the government could exceed Biden’s goal of administering 100 million vaccinations in the first hundred days of his presidency, telling ABC News: ‘it’s a word; it’s not a ceiling.
Fauci, who appeared separately on CBS News ‘Face the Nation’, said the target of 100 million shots included people who may have received both injections of the two-dose vaccines and those who received only the first stab.